aving to multiply a whole number by a fraction,
never failed, they say, to obtain a product much greater than the
multiplicand. He affirmed that under his system of harmony the mercury
would solidify when the temperature was above zero. He might as well
have said that the Harmonians would make burning ice. I once asked an
intelligent phalansterian what he thought of such physics. "I do not
know," he answered; "but I believe." And yet the same man disbelieved in
the doctrine of the Real Presence.

In fact, the Fourierists proclaim themselves, on the one hand, defenders
of property, of the right of increase, which they have thus formulated:
TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS CAPITAL, HIS LABOR, AND HIS SKILL. On the other
hand, they wish the workingman to come into the enjoyment of all
the wealth of society; that is,--abridging the expression,--into the
undivided enjoyment of his own product. Is not this like saying to the
workingman, "Labor, you shall have three francs per day; you shall live
on fifty-five sous; you shall give the rest to the proprietor, and thus
you will consume three francs"?

If the above speech is not an exact epitome of Charles Fourier's system,
I will subscribe to the whole phalansterian folly with a pen dipped in
my own blood.

Of what use is it to reform industry and agriculture,--of what use,
indeed, to labor at all,--if property is maintained, and labor can never
meet its expenses? Without the abolition of property, the organization
of labor is neither more nor less than a delusion. If production should
be quadrupled,--a thing which does not seem to me at all impossible,--it
would be labor lost: if the additional product was not consumed, it
would be of no value, and the proprietor would decline to receive it as
interest; if it was consumed, all the disadvantages of property would
reappear. It must be confessed that the theory of passional attraction
is gravely at fault in this particular, and that Fourier, when he tried
to harmonize the PASSION for property,--a bad passion, whatever he may
say to the contrary,--blocked his own chariot-wheels.

The absurdity of the phalansterian economy is so gross, that many people
suspect Fourier, in spite of all the homage paid by him to proprietors,
of having been a secret enemy of property. This opinion might be
supported by plausible arguments; still it is not mine. Charlatanism
was too important a part for such a man to play, and sincerity too
insignificant